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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021956">Find My Way Back, I'll Come Back Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles'>stardustedknuckles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Missing Scene, Obann mention, mentions of past mind control, spoilers for 118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:09:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,595</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021956</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Beau's not the only one having some trouble, but they're going to figure this out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beauregard Lionett/Yasha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>180</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Find My Way Back, I'll Come Back Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just this for now. I was basically handed a shrapnel bomb of emotions last night, and I'm still sorting. I did attempt a prompt for today, but it wasn't happening. I'll toss it in with the next prompt fill, meanwhile have this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's been two months, and the wanting is still so new.</p><p> </p><p>Not the feeling itself, though it has changed. It's the flavor of it, the way there's degrees to it. That's the only way she knows it's real, is that it fluctuates. Obann's will never had shades to it. When he made Yasha want something, it was overpowering. She couldn't rest until she had it, one way or the other.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha is surprised anew every time she rediscovers her own want. It's…soft, she thinks. She's capable of soft.</p><p> </p><p>But it's also why she can't approach Beau directly, even now. Because Yasha wants Beau as badly as Obann ever wanted anything, and it's terrifying, to look at her and feel that cacophony of gentleness and ferocity. It doesn't matter that it never flares into the telltale possessive edge of Obann's will - she's forgotten how to keep from bracing every time.</p><p> </p><p>The rage that floods her when Beau is taken from her and swallowed overpowers everything Obann ever made her feel, and it is <em>good</em>. It is right and it is just and Beau is <em>safe</em>, but there she does find the possessiveness, that familiar edge turned inside out, and the terror of it leaves Yasha wrung out and desperate to find some handhold of softness - some reminder to ground herself in her own mind.</p><p> </p><p>She watches Beau gouge the eyes out of the creature with her bare hands and remembers losing herself in that feeling until it became a part of her, until it became a weapon for someone else. There has to be something soft to hold onto, she thinks. There has to.</p><p> </p><p>She tears the spine out of a dead creature, as one does.</p><p> </p><p>It's calming, ripping through the skin and the muscle and finding the places where there is give and coaxing them to do so. Meditative, almost. She belongs with her hand inside the dead body of a beast just as much as she belongs with the art she'll make from it herself. There is softness, if she will only dig.</p><p> </p><p>She remembers again the horrible sound Beau made as the creature swallowed her. Choked off, a kind of gurgled "help." Yasha's eyes opening on empty space, the nightmare pooling of dread before grabbing Veth to <em>pull</em> -</p><p> </p><p>Yasha comes to with a start, panting slightly in a pile of dried viscera and bones. Her knuckles around her knife's handle are white as Caleb peels them gently from the leather straps one by one. Her hand is shaking, and when he unwraps her thumb he takes the knife to rest it on the floor and presses the thumb of the other into the center of her palm.</p><p> </p><p>She inhales, comes back to herself a little. Caleb waits for her eyes to meet his, searches, nods. He pats her arm and takes the conversation elsewhere, another gift as she gets to work loading up the bones.</p><p> </p><p>She realizes later that Beau had spoken, but by then they're moving forward.</p><p> </p><p>Veth finds a room full of trees and Yasha has a wild thought - <em>there could be flowers</em> - and when there aren't she finds she still feels steadier. Not steady enough to offer to walk beside Beau, but enough that doing so finds the want of her soft again, and here she can rest.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey," she says, and Beau looks startled when she glances up from the floor.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey."</p><p> </p><p>Beau is still covered in dried blood and neutralized acid, and Yasha reaches absentmindedly to pluck a piece of petrified twig from her cloak. Beau tenses under her, but when Yasha drags her hand away her shoulder follows for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>"You were impressive there at the end," Yasha say. "With the eye."</p><p> </p><p>Beau huffs a little. "Hard to miss when you're jammed against it, I guess."</p><p> </p><p>There's a muteness to her words, an absence of some kind. All day since the creature she's been chipper to the point of sharpness. She just looks tired now, and it doesn't escape Yasha that Caleb's in the position to watch her back. Maybe, she thinks, she hadn't fallen in beside her by chance after all.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha bumps her shoulder very gently against Beau's, smiles and lets some of the want bleed through. "You looked like you were raging."</p><p> </p><p>The smile Beau returns takes effort, and there's a kind of beauty in her hauling it up from the depths to let Yasha see. Beau's all hard edges and bruises, skin still split with teeth marks in some places, but it strikes Yasha suddenly that the hunger in her, the search for softness, has gone quiet.</p><p> </p><p>"Are you doing alright?" She keeps her voice low, crafts a small space in the air just for them.</p><p> </p><p>Beau's eyes are faraway when she nods, and Yasha waits for the reflex to pass to see if she'll dig any deeper. It's alright if she doesn't. Being here is enough. She takes a moment to probe the memory of her terror at Beau being ripped from her - the moment of panic when she wasn't certain Veth had her, if she would be too late to reach in herself, what state she might find Beau in when she got her out. The memory burns, but she can hold it now.</p><p> </p><p>"I was really scared."</p><p> </p><p>It takes Yasha a half a second to realize that hadn't been her own voice, and she glances down to find Beau looking up at her. For the first time, Yasha notices that the grime and blood on Beau's face is smudged under her eyes and streaked sideways.</p><p> </p><p>She can't dwell on how long she'd missed seeing it - she has to speak before Beau thinks she doesn't want to. "I was too."</p><p> </p><p>Beau's mouth quirks, rueful. "What were you afraid of? You fucked that thing right up."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha hesitates. "I did," she says slowly. "But you know why, don't you?"</p><p> </p><p>"Because it was creepy and awful and wanted to kill us all?" Her eyes are searching Yasha's face, like she doesn't quite dare to hope there's more.</p><p> </p><p>But there is, and Yasha's heart seizes. She reaches up without thinking and touches an angry red scratch on Beau's jawline. "Because it took you. From me." </p><p> </p><p>The light of the sword in her left hand is bright enough that the glow that pulses gently from her palm is hard to see. Beau shudders and closes her eyes for just a moment. The scratch on her face turns pink, then white, the fades until Yasha can only see it because she knows it's there.</p><p> </p><p>"You didn't have to do that."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha doesn't take her hand away. "I did. I've been in my head a lot today, I know. But I did hear you."</p><p> </p><p>She strokes her thumb up to brush just at the corner of Beau's mouth, feels it move when Beau says, "When?"</p><p> </p><p>"All of it," she replies. "You asked for help. You said you felt useless." Beau looks away, but Yasha doesn't stop. "You asked for healing, and then when Jester asked if you were okay…I heard you."</p><p> </p><p>The tiredness returns to Beau's eyes. "I don't know if I hoped you did or not." She swallows, looking lost, and Yasha can't be sure but she thinks she feels Beau press her cheek quietly into her palm. "I do want you, you know. I just feel like you should know that at least, after today."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha blinks. She's scared for a moment, that when she processes those words she'll be consumed by her own want and freeze again - send all the wrong signals, ruin this delicate dance.</p><p> </p><p>The feeling does swell, but where she expects sharpness there's only warmth and she's able to say, "I've been hearing that one for a long time. I just didn't...know how to recognize it yet."</p><p> </p><p>There must have been a tremor in her voice, because Beau's eyes when she looks up are searching again, this time in something like concern. "What do you mean?"</p><p> </p><p>There's not enough time to tell her everything, but something inside of Yasha feels like maybe it's shaken loose where once it was jammed. For once, it feels like there might be a map for this want. "It's just new to me," she says. "I still…sometimes I worry I can't tell what's my want and what's left over. From him."</p><p> </p><p>She's not told Beau the extent of it, not really. What it felt like to be inhabited by someone else's desire, how time eroded her memory of what her own felt like. But the way Beau's expression changes to something stricken reminds Yasha of what she already knew: she's not the only one watching - and Beau is <em>much</em> better at it.</p><p> </p><p>The murmuring of their friends in front of them stops, and Beau closes her mouth on whatever she'd been about to say. As Fjord addresses the group, Yasha lets her fingers fall away and jumps when a moment later the back of Beau's hand bumps hers and rests there. "The crest is here," says Fjord. "We have a good lead on the others, so let's find a spot and make camp before we go poking anything else. Caleb?"</p><p> </p><p>Yasha looks to Beau as everyone files into the room Caduceus clears nearby. There's so much left to say, but the option has to be Beau's.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until Beau beats her to it. "First watch?" she asks, and her voice is soft and certain.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha exhales, threads their fingertips together. "Yeah," she says. "First watch."</p>
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